Modern ICs tend to use increasingly small devices, such as transistors. To reduce the physical size and to increase performance, typical devices use thin gate dielectrics. The thin dielectric, however, makes the device more susceptible to ESD. Conventional ESD protection circuits have used a variety of techniques to prevent damage in the event of an ESD. That protection, however, has tended to reduce the performance of the IC. A need exists for ESD circuits that effective protect the IC, yet provide relatively high input/output (I/O) performance.